UPDATE: Body Believed to be Missing Girl Found

Authorities say they have found a child’s body believed to be that of an 18-month-old girl as they continue to investigate a series of Kansas farm deaths.

Franklin County Sheriff Jeffrey Richards said early Sunday that the body believed to be that of Lana Leigh Bailey was found hours earlier by a sheriff’s deputy in another Kansas locality.

He says evidence found at the scene in Osage County corroborated earlier information that led investigators to believe the remains were those of the missing child. But he said he hoped forensic examination would make the final identification.

Crews in eastern Kansas had been searching for the girl, whom authorities said earlier was presumed dead after the bodies of her mother and two men were found at a farm home earlier in the week.

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ORIGINAL: Authorities in eastern Kansas are using boats and sonar equipment in their search for a missing toddler presumed to have been killed along with her mother and two other adults at a rural property.

Franklin County Sheriff Jeff Richards said Saturday that crews were scouring ponds and other waterways in the area near the farm where the three adult bodies were found earlier this week outside Ottawa. The cause of death hasn’t been released.